Harriers finish off season on podium

HIGHGATE Harriers ended their season with a podium finish on Saturday when they finished third in their final Southern League Division One meet in Devon, writes Melvyn Shearer. The result leaves Highgate in seventh place overall out of the 25 clubs that took part, moving up three places in the table from the previous year.
The most improved performer for the club this summer was Mathew Dore-Weeks, who hit personal bests to clinch gold in the 110m ‘A’ hurdles and the ‘B’ 400m hurdles in respective times of 15.4secs and 57.4secs. The talented athlete also went on to finish second in the high jump ‘A’ event, before joining Simon Child, Atak Diing and Greg Smith to finish third in the 4x400m relay. Smith, Kevin Gold, Marius Guei and Francis Asante repeated the third place finish in the 4x100m relay. Despite having not trained for two months, specialist thrower John Tartaru picked up two silver medals and a bronze after finish second in the hammer and the shot putt, and third in the discus. Meanwhile distance runners Glen Saqui and Henry Dodwell finished within touching distance of each other as they returned to action in the 5000m. Dodwell went on to put in a powerful run to break away from the opposition in the 3000m steeplechase, while Canadian Glen Saqui also finished second in the ‘A’ 1500m. Another distance Peter Downie added to the medal haul when he won the 800m, before finishing second in the 1500m race. There were also wins for Greg Smith, who put in an impressive run to hit home first in the 400m ‘A’ in 51.3secs, and Simon Child, who was in good form to win the ‘A’ 400m hurdles in 55.2secs. Child also finished second in the ‘B’ hurdles despite hitting four hurdles. Elsewhere Jay Bola, a basketball player for Greenwich University, won the ‘B’ high jump, while Atak Diing finished second in the ‘A’ 800m and third in the ‘B’ 400m events. There were also podium finishes for Francis Asante, Dennis Ntoluke and Thierry Lebretton. HIGHGATE Harrier Jonathan Gardner put in a commanding performan  ce on Sunday when he competed in the London Triathlon. Gardner, who won an Inter-Club Challenge 5000m earlier in the season, finished in just under two hours, 40 minutes after swimming 1500m, tackling a testing 40K bike circuit and running 10K. MEANWHILE club mate Alistair Lindsey beat a field of more than 270 runners to win the Mornington Chasers Regents Park 10k road race on Saturday.